In another one, she had on a red dress, with lips to match, a martini in her hand, her foot kicking up playfully. More beautiful than anyone had the right to be. He zeroed in on a recent one, from a few weeks ago, and found his mouth dropping open at the spectacle. When she’d told him that story about how she’d gotten arrested and sent to Westport, he’d assumed she’d embellished a little.

Nope.

There she was, among the rowdy crowd, wreathed in smoke and fireworks, arms thrown up. Happy and alive. And was that the number of people who’d clicked the heart?

Over three million?

Brendan dragged a hand down his face.

Piper Bellinger was from a different, flashier planet.

She’s out of your league.

Way out.

Remembering how he’d fed her fish and chips last night when she was obviously used to caviar and champagne, he was embarrassed. If he could go back in time and not bring her those stupid takeout menus, he would do it in a heartbeat. God, she must have been laughing at him.

“Well?” Fox prompted.

Brendan cleared his throat hard. “What does ‘follow’ mean?”

“Don’t,” Deke rushed to say. “Don’t press it.”

His thumb was already on the way back up. “Too late.”

All three of his crew members surged to their feet. “No. Brendan, don’t tell me you just tapped the blue button,” Sanders groaned, hands on his mop of red hair. “She’s going to see you followed her. She’s going to know you internet stalked her.”

“Can’t I just unfollow now?” Brendan started to tap again.

Fox lunged forward. “No! No, that’s even worse. If she already noticed you followed her, she’s just going to think you’re playing games.”

“Jesus. I’m deleting the whole thing,” Brendan said, throwing the offending device onto the dashboard, where it bashed up against the windshield. His crew stared back expectantly, waiting for him to put his money where his mouth was. “Later,” he growled, firing up the motor. “Get to work.”

As soon as the three men were out of sight, he picked the phone back up slowly. Weighing it in his hand for a moment, he opened the app again and scrolled through Piper’s feed until one image stopped him. She was sitting beside Hannah on a diving board, both of them wrapped in the same towel, water droplets all over her face. This looked like the Piper he’d had dinner with last night. Was she that girl? Or the daring jet-setter?

The sheer number of photos of her glittering at parties, balls, even awards shows suggested she loved the spotlight, the wealth and luxury. Shit he knew nothing about. More than that, she clearly liked polished, manicured men, probably with bank accounts that matched her own. And that meant his interest in her wasn’t only annoying, it was laughable. He was a set-in-his-ways fisherman. She was a rich, adventurous socialite. He couldn’t even order something new at a restaurant, and she dined with celebrities. Dated them.

He’d just have to spend the next few months keeping his admiration of her to himself, lest he make himself look like a fucking fool.

With one last glance at the picture of her smiling on the diving board, he determinedly shoved his phone into the front pocket of his jeans and focused on what he knew.

Fishing.

Chapter Twelve

Obviously they visited the winery first.

Brendan was right about Piper loving the selfie spot—damn him—a jewel-toned wall painted to look like stained glass, vines crawling up the sides and wrapping around a neon vino sign. Essentially an altar at which to worship the social media gods.

Hannah was not a drinker. Thanks to four glasses of wine, many attempts were made to get a non-blurry picture of Piper before an adequate one was selected.

Piper applied a filter before swiping over to Instagram. Automatically, she tapped her notifications. “Oh, look at that.” Her pulse stuttered. “Brendan followed me.” She tapped his profile and choked. “Oh. I’m the only one he’s following. He just joined.”

Hannah squished her cheeks together. “Oh boy. Rookie move.”

“Yeah . . .” But it was a really, really endearing move, too.

How did she feel about Brendan looking at her plethora of side boob and booty? Even her most modest pictures were kind of provocative. What if her lack of modesty turned him off? Did he really create a profile just to follow her?

Maybe Hannah had a point about social media having too much ownership over her thoughts and enjoyment. Now she was going to spend the next three days wondering which pictures Brendan looked at and what he thought about them. Would he laugh at her captions? If this Instagram feed was his glimpse into Piper Bellinger’s life, would it override the real-life impression she’d given him?

“You should have seen this little record shop, Pipes,” Hannah said around a sip of wine. Leave it to her sister to wax poetic about a record store after too much to drink, instead of an ex-boyfriend or a crush. As far back as she could remember, Hannah had been hunkered down in headphones, her face buried in song lyrics. When she turned sixteen, Piper brought Hannah to her first concert—Mumford & Sons—and the poor girl had almost passed out from stimuli. Her soul was made of musical notes. “They had a poster for a 1993 Alice in Chains concert. Just tacked to the wall! Because they haven’t had a chance to take it down!”

Piper smiled at her sister’s enthusiasm. “Why didn’t you buy anything?”

“I wanted to. There was a really nice Purple Rain LP, but they had it way underpriced. It would have felt like stealing.”

“You’re a good apple, kid.” Piper had the niggling urge to scroll her Instagram feed and see everything through Brendan’s eyes, but she determinedly ignored it. “So. What’s Fox like?”

Hannah set down her glass. “Uh-uh. Don’t ask me like that.”

“What? He’s cute.”

“He’s not my type.”

“Not depressed and bitter enough?”

Her sister snorted. “His phone dinged like a hundred times in twenty minutes. That’s either one passionate girl or several admirers, and my money is on the latter.”

“Yeah,” Piper admitted. “He did have that playboy look about him.”

Hannah swung her feet. “Besides, I think he was just doing the wingman thing. He wasted no time extolling Brendan’s virtues.”

“Oh?” Piper took a too-casual gulp of wine. “What did Fox have to say about him? Just out of curiosity.”

Her sister narrowed her eyes. “Tell me you’re not interested in him.”

“Whoa. I’m not. His wedding ring is like, welded onto his finger.”

“And he’s mean to you.” Hannah shifted her weight on her stool, looking as if she was working up to saying something. “You’ve been tread on by some mean guys lately, all right? There was Adrian. The one before him who produced that sci-fi HBO pilot, whose name I can’t remember. I just want to make sure you’re not falling into a bad pattern.”

Piper reared back a little. “A pattern where I pick men who’ll make me feel shitty?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

She replayed her last three relationships. Which didn’t take that long, since collectively they’d lasted six weeks. “Shit. You might be onto something.”